Sorry for the radio silence around here, I've been busy to say the least. I'm sure you have already heard, but if you haven't, I didn't make it past the first round of Sewvivor. Yep, I got the boot. Yes, I was disappointed, I mean really disappointed, and may have moped around for a few days. But, I am happy to say that life goes on, I'm over it and steady sewing! Actually doing a LOT of secret sewing that I can't share for a while, so that is why I've been absent. I do want to thank all my followers and friends, because I did receive over 200 votes for my little bag, and I'm really proud of that and I have all of you to thank for that!Now let me talk about some of that secret sewing for a moment, one of the things I've been working on will be shared next week as part of the Craft Book Month Blog Hop, hosted by Craft Buds, I'll be here next Thursday showing off my Craft Book creation! I'm not done with that project yet, so I better get stitching, and I may or may not have shown off a sneaky peak over on my Instagram account.All of the Craft Book Month information is below, and it really is a great event that encourages you to pull out those craft books you bought and USE THEM. And no, this is not limited to quilting/sewing. Do you have a great canning recipe book? Preserve some food, enter to win. Knit or crochet something, enter to win. Easy peasy! The prizes were announced today, which are really awesome, so there is no excuse not to create something, enter and hopefully win!I'll be back next week, enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

September marks the 4th Annual Craft Book Month at Craft Buds! This year, we're excited to celebrate all month long with a blog hop of inspiring craft book projects and LOTS of giveaways for sewing along with a sewing, knitting, cookbook or other craft book of YOUR CHOICE. If you are a craft book hoarder, you are not alone. Several years ago, I had an urge to dust off my craft books, unfold those crisp pattern sheets and put those patterns to good use by actually making some projects. :)

Link Up

9/1-9/30: Link up your craft book project at Craft Buds from your blog or Flickr account, and enter to win prizes. To participate in the month-long contest, just link up any project you've made from a pattern in a craft book. That easy! You'll tell us a little about the book, the project, how you personalized it, etc. Winners will be announced on Wednesday, October, 1!

Rules

1) One entry per person.2)Your craft book project must have been completed in 2014.3) Create a new blog post or Flickr photo (dated September 1, 2014 or later) and link back toCraft Buds/Craft Book Monthin your post or photo description. In your post or photo description, make sure to list the craft book you used and provide a link if possible.4) All winners chosen via Random.org. Some prizes available to international winners, so please join us!

Prizes

Visit Craft Buds and link up your craft book project during the window of Sept 1-30 and you'll automatically be entered to win some fantastic prizes from the Craft Book Month sponsors! More info coming soon . . .

Hi, Marci from Marci Girl Designs here and I want to start by saying, yes, I know that the second challenge is the bag challenge, not the first, but I couldn't help myself and Rach said we could make anything. When it was time to decide what I was making, I just couldn't move past "bag" so in the end I went with it. Simply put, I thought a Nautical bag would be so cool.

The bag idea really started to take shape when I was looking through old pins on Pinterest and was inspired by this bag found HERE. If you click through, there is a tutorial on how to make that bag, but I didn't use that tutorial at all and just did my own thing based solely on the simple design. I dug through my amazingly large collection of nautical prints and chose a simple blue with white rope, Windham Fabrics, "Catch of the Day" by Pela Studio. I then added a coordinating blue Kona solid and a 100% linen that I had in my stash.

I cut random sized strips for each colorway, and serged the edges of the linen to prevent fraying in the future. I sewed together long strips of each print and in essence created a new "fabric" piece. I drafted my own purse shape, roughly 13" x 17" with rounded bottom corners. I decided on the angle I wanted, and then cut out my pieces based on my drafted pattern. This was actually really difficult for me, and involved a lot more time than I was originally hoping. Those angles get me every time!

Once the front and back chevron pieces were sewn together, I then fused Pellon SF-101 to the backs of each piece for added stability. I then added a 100% cotton batting to the back (creating three layers) and pin basted it. I sewed around the edges, a scant 1/8" to hold all the layers together, which was especially helpful when it came time to construct the bag.

I decided to hand quilt with a lovely dark blue pearl cotton in large chunky stitches on the linen only, 1/4" away from the edges. All of the hand quilting was done while my family was on vacation for a week (ironically at the beach) smack in the middle of this challenge. I then used the rest of our vacation to stress about where this project was headed.

Upon getting home, I quickly went back to work. At first I thought I would raw edge applique something nautical on the bag, but I couldn't figure out what and felt stuck. I'm not sure how the idea came to me, but I remembered I had a book, Scandinavian Stitches by Kajsa Wikman, and in it was this darling project quilt that incorporated a "nautical" poem that was free motion quilted onto the quilt. That project in the book was called the "Once I Caught a Fish Quilt." Hmm, I wondered if there was any way this would work with my design? Well amazingly, it did! It fit just perfectly, so I used a black thread and free motion quilted the poem on the front and back.

I was pleasantly pleased how well it turned out and honestly much easier than I expected. I did all of the quilting on my old Project Runway Brother, with a generic free motion quilting foot and regular old Coats and Clark thread. I brought all the thread tails to the back of the "quilt" and tied them all off and trimmed all the threads. Now that the quilting was finished it was time to turn it into a bag!

I made my own (kinda large) piping with the linen fabric, basted it onto the front, and then sewed the front and back together along the sides and bottom. I found a really neat cotton webbing (that I felt looked really nautical and matched amazingly well) and decided for short handles after debating between short and long for quite some time. I basted them to the bag and slipped on one D-ring on each handle before doing so. I used the same blue with white rope fabric print for the lining and finished up the bag. The top of the bag, which looks like I used bias tape to finish, is actually the lining made a tad bit longer than the bag, wrapped around the front creating that look. I top stitched in the ditch around the whole bag, thus holding the lining on the inside and then stitched the handles down to the very top of the bag, creating a nice little channel that the d-rings were seated into.

I knew at this point that the bag needed a little something else, to make it just "pop," but I wasn't sure what. Then i randomly remembered this little kit that came with one of my old issues of Mollie Makes. I pulled out the kit, which I had not made yet, and realized it would be perfect for this bag, though the fabric that came with the kit wasn't perfect for this particular project. So I dug through some red 5" charms that I had, picked 3 that I really liked and used the instructions and some of the kit materials to make this three little fish key-chain. The kit and instructions were included in Mollie Makes Issue 29, and the project was named "Sardine Keyring" by Zoe Patching. Isn't it the cutest! I just love it, and so do my kids, who have now requested I make them a ton of fish (without the strings!) I clipped the key-chain onto the front side d-ring and called the bag complete! What do you think? I just adore it!

Now that my first challenge project was complete, I had the task of photographing it! You see, I live in South Louisiana and honestly there aren't a ton of beaches (or at least pretty ones) anywhere near me. More like swamps and bayous, so I went with it! I loaded up the family, drove to a nearby canoe launch that is adjacent to the Vermillion River and took a ton of photos. Not feeling 100% about the first round, we went exploring and ended up in a State Park in Abbeville, Louisiana, the Palmetto Island State Park. We had never been to this State Park, and were pleasantly surprised by what we found. I finished taking my photos at the boat launch and later at the pond, and then the rest of the day was spent playing with the family. We hiked, played on the playground and the best part, the splash pad, which was awesome and huge by the way.

The day ended at the pond, where I finished my final pictures and right as we were about to leave (the kids had been throwing rocks into the pond,) guess who showed up? A five foot alligator! Yikes, time to go! So I included this final shot to show "proof" of our alligator. If you look to the right of the bag, there is a "line" in the water, there it is, head just out of the water swimming by! No sir, I did not like that, and neither did my kids who were now freaked out! I guess that is just some of the hazards to living in South Louisiana!

It was so fun and challenging participating in the first round of Sewvivor. I really felt like I stretched myself with this project, trying new techniques and trying to think out of the box. I traveled to new places, created a project I was really proud of and am just so honored to have been chosen as a participant in this really cool contest. Now I need your help, 50% of the voting process is done by you guys! So I would really appreciate it if you would click through HERE and vote for my project, which is PROJECT #8. I really want to keep playing and if you liked what I created, please take a moment to go vote for me! Thank you guys for supporting me so much and especially to my blog followers throughout the years, I truly appreciate you all!

Quickly popping in today, on a Sunday to let you know my amazing news (if you haven't already heard!) I made it into the Sewvivor Top 16, you can see my audition piece HERE! Woo hoo! I am beyond thrilled ya'll, like crazy excited! I wanted to blog earlier, but was on vacation for a week smack in the middle of the first challenge, so all of my time has been seriously devoted to vacation, crazy mad sewing and getting ready for school to start next week! Can I say BUSY BUSY! Whew deep breath!

Rach at Family Ever After (the host of Sewvivor,) featured a Getting to Know the 16 Sewvivor Contestants blog post last week and if you get a chance, hop over there and you can read a short biography of yours truly along with the other 15 contestants. Tomorrow is the first challenge reveal, the theme was Nautical, so I'll be back tomorrow with a really long blog post about my first project! I will need all of your help to continue on in this sewing competition, so join me tomorrow for all the details on how to vote and to see my first project! Wish me luck!